Maria B. Malby . . . Glasnost and surprise
Biographical sketch of Maria Malby. This and other articles may be found in the University Archives.The citation for this article is: "Maria B. Malby . . . Glasnost and surprise," Pieces of Eight, September 15, 1988.
Maria B. Malby (Foreign Languages and Literatures) notes with some amusement an increasing usage of English words -- quaintly mispronounced -- in Russian, the language spoken on the streets of Moscow and at summit conferences.And with a definite degree of pleasant surprise, she notes an increasing interest among ECU students in study of the Russian language. Malby herself began studying Russian at an early age and confesses, "There was a time that I hated it."
When she spent two months in Russia as an exchange language professor, she found Russians using some common English words such as "peak" to describe the heaviest traffic hour, and "chief." They are in everday usage and even appear on signs in Moscow.
"We were surprised. 'What is this?' we asked," she recalls.
She came to learn that the Russians "are trying very hard" to be better understood. "After all the privation, hardship and tragedy, they want desperately to live the good life," she says.
An Increasing Interest
Back at ECU after a summer at Princeton studying The Antihero in Modern Literature, she encountered another pleasant surprise: forty-five students enrolled for beginning Russian. It's the largest beginning Russian class we've had in the 18 years that I've been here," Malby says. "It's exciting."Most likely it is because of the new attitude (of Russian leaders)," she says. "The new political climate . . . more openness . . . the Gorbachev era . . . glasnost. All have helped increase interest in Russian."
With 45 beginning students and a cadre of advanced students, Malby hopes for the day that Russian is established as a minor for an ECU degree program. ECU is one of only three schools in the state where Russian is taught.
'Stick With It'
"There was a time when I hated Russian, and resisted it," says the Yugoslavian-born Malby whose native language is Serbo-Croatian. Under the Communist regime in her homeland, Russian was obligatory beginning in the second grade. Thus she became familiar with Russian and Russian literature at an early age."I tell my students, 'Stick with it, day by day, and you will master it.'"
With advanced degrees from Harvard, Malby came to ECU in 1970 and has headed the Russian and Slavic Languages section since then. In 1986, she received the coveted alumni teaching excellence award, a year after her exchange trip to Russia.
